USAfrica: Novelist Chimamanda reveals she was sexually assaulted at 17

Award-winning novelist and author of Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has revealed that she was sexually assaulted at the age of 17 by “a big man” in the media in Lagos, Nigeria. She was born on September 15, 1977 in Enugu. She revealed this during an address at the 2018 Stockholm Forum for Gender Equality.

Chimamanda recalled how she had taken a book of poems she wrote to a “big man in the media” so he could support her in publicizing that work but the yet undisclosed man sexually assaulted her he slipped his hand under her shirt and bra, then squeezed her breast. “I was so taken aback that I did nothing for seconds”, she said. Then, I pushed his hand away, but gently, nicely, because I didn’t want to offend him.

“Later that day, I broke into a rash on my chest, my neck, my face, as though my body were recoiling, as though my body were saying what my lips had not said.”

“I felt a deep loathing for that man and for what he did. I felt as if I didn’t matter, as if my body existed merely as a thing to be done with as he wanted. Yet, I told no one about it. And I kept talking to him, being polite, hoping he will help with my book.”